Claim CH504.2:
In 1955, after two unsuccessful searches, Fernand Navarra found hand-hewn
wood in a wall of ice at the 13,750 foot level. He retrieved a small
sample of the wood, which is apparently very old.
In 1969, Navarra and others found more old wood at two different sites.
Source:
LaHaye, Tim and John Morris, 1976. The Ark on Ararat, Nashville: Thomas
Nelson Inc. and Creation Life Publishers, pp. 129-134, 158-160.
Response:
- Radiocarbon dates for Navarra's 1955 sample were obtained from five
laboratories. One lab, whose sample size was insufficient, placed its
age at 260 C.E. +/- 120 years. Three others dated it between 720 to
790 C.E. +/- about 90 years. The fifth apparently dated it to around
300-700 C.E. (There was no published report.)
Two labs have dated the 1969 samples, one at 650 C.E. +/- 50 years, the
other at 630 C.E. +/- 95 years.
The dates are substantially consistent; the only two inconsistent dates
are questionable to begin with. The wood is too young for Noah's ark.
The wood was also dated by other methods, namely degree of lignite
formation, gain in wood density, cell modification, color change, and
unspecified criteria. These methods yielded ages around 5000 years,
but all these methods are highly subjective and variable. In
particular, wood density analysis depends on the initial density of the
wood, but different sources disagree what species of wood the samples
are; one lab specifically rejects the lighter species of oak in favor
of a denser species that would give a younger age. Control samples
would be necessary to get useful results from lignite formation. The
color change could have occurred in as little as 100 years (Bailey
1989).
- Navarra himself is suspect. Navarra's descriptions of where he found
the wood are vague and contradictory, so much so that the obfuscation
must be deliberate. In 1969, the wood only appeared where Navarra told
people to dig, and on at least one occasion, Navarra had opportunity to
plant wood at the site the day before. One of Navarra's friends
accused him of attempting to purchase timber from a very old structure,
and two other people wrote that they had firsthand knowledge that he
fraudulently claimed wood to have come from the ark in order to sell
his books (LaHaye and Morris 1976).
References:
- Bailey, Lloyd, 1989. Noah: The Person and the Story in History and
Tradition. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
- LaHaye and Morris, 1976. (see above)
created 2003-5-7
